


Potsunder Allgemeine, 13/24/579

by laughingpineapple



Category: Omar Rayyan - Works
Genre: Animal Abuse, Gen, Newspapers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 13:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13147671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Her calm stare pierced through the portrait in the paper's morning edition.





	Potsunder Allgemeine, 13/24/579

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quillori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/gifts).



 

 

Potsund

The Duchess of Marzat made a strong fashion statement at the new year’s gala.

The fashion enthusiasts among our readers, doubtlessly already up to speed, will forgive this brief recapitulation of the facts that led to last night's events: Alche-pelzen, or living furs, are a blooming trend among the nobility, but rarely seen outside a grand feast's closed doors.

The fuse that sparked the accessorizing revolution was none other than our prince Vetrego with his beloved cat. Famously unwilling to part with his feline companion, he can be seen carrying it around his neck as if it were a scarf. The alchemist's guild saw the opportunity and seized it: any citizen wanting to follow the royal example but lacking an inordinately well-behaved cat can instead part with a large amount of money to acquire an animated tippet, busby or other garment, and yet another constant outflow of money to feed and wash it properly. As a fur hat given life is, understandably in this journalist's humble opinion, rather vexed by its new and unasked-for status, these accessories are, for the most part, highly aggressive, accepting only the company of their own species (out of schadenfreude? We may never know) and proving to be viciously aggressive against all others. It is easy to picture how this characteristic would tickle our ruling class’s fancy more vigorously than simply following royal example ever could: Alche-pelzen have become not only a status symbol but a display of group identity, of belonging to a faction or clique. Restaurants reserved only for elk-wearers, minks sharing tea-tables with minks, and, for the younger generations and the perennial contrarians, rare furs from the abyss itself.

Waiters among our readers may have experienced the fearsome sound of the snap of the teeth of a fox-scarf's jaw when serving a rare steak to its wearer, and clerks rarely dare to point out expired deadlines on this or that module with a ferret hissing at them. Unions have filed several complaints, but with no actual accidents, policemen, let alone lawmakers, are unwilling to stir up a storm, and have so far let the nobles play with their costly alchemical trinkets undisturbed.

Which leads us back to yesterday night: Duchess Irzina of Marzat made her usual grand entrance at the gala, sporting a living fox-scarf as foxes are the preferred animal among her social circle. The white fox perfectly complemented her black coat and hat, once again proving the Duchess's unparalleled sense of fashion. Only the hat’s decoration, some sort of crude leather harness, raised some eyebrows. Still, nobody would have expected it to be an actual muzzle: Duchess Irzina walked up to the center of the hall and took the harness off her hat, revealing it as a living, breathing, biting abyssal kulpak. The fox snapped on the offensive before anyone could intervene: the bloody fight between the two furs left them both dead, and the Duchess gravely wounded along with six more unlucky bystanders.

A temporary ban on Alche-pelzen has been issued by the authority this morning.

Was it simply an accident, a love for fashion mindlessly taken too far? The police have been investigating the Duchess's ties to trade unions or to the so-called “animal rights” groups. So far, nothing has surfaced. Nothing except for a portrait taken that evening by the gala's photographer, and the cold determination in her eyes.


End file.
